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LIBRARY OF CONGRESS 



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/ 

THE RACE PROBLEM. 



THE BROWNSVILLE RAID. 



Shall the white man share his inheritance with colored races? 6r / ( 

Lynching for rape justified. — 

South Carolina under reconstruction. V i * ' 
Her second declaration of independence. 



SPEECH 

OF 

HON. BENJAMIN R. TILLMAN, 

! I 

OF SOUTH CAROLINA, 

IN THE 

SENATE OF THE UNITED STATES, 



Saturday. January 12, 1907. 



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WASHINGTON. 
1 90 7. 



The bequest of 
Daniel Murray, 
Washington, D, C, 
1525. 



SPEECH 

OF 

HOK BENJAMIN E. TILLMAN. 



The Senate Laving under consideration the following resolu- 
tion — 

Resolved, That the Committee on Military Affairs be, and hereby is, 
authorized to take such further testimony as may be necessary to es- 
tablish the' facts connected with the discharge of members of Com- 
panies B, C, and D, Twenty-fifth United States Infantry, and that it 
be, and hereby is, authorized to send for persons aud papers and ad- 
minister oaths, and report thereon, by bill or otherwise. 

The committee, or any subcommittee thereof, is further authorized, 
if deemed necessary, to Visit Brownsville, Tex., inspect the locality of 
the recent disturbance, and examine witnesses there — 

Mr. TILLMAN said : 

Mr. President : Now I come to the question of mob violence 
in Texas. The War Department in its dispatches showed great 
interest and earnestness and dread lest if the men under accusa- 
tion were surrendered they could not be defended, and, as I 
say, they were sneaked out of Brownsville because of the dread 
that if it were known that they were being carried away some- 
body somewhere might meet the train and have a lynching. I 
want to ask anybody here whether, if these had been white sol- 
diers, there would have been a word said about mob violence? 
Everybody knows there would not have been. The men under 
suspicion would have been surrendered to the civil authorities, 
as the law requires. The War Department might have sent the 
Judge-Advocate-General to defend them, as it had a right to do. 
The matter would have been tested in the courts, the guilt or 
the innocence of the men under accusation would have been 
established, and the thing would have been settled in a proper 
way. 

But, Mr. President, while it has been said by the President 
himself that this action of his was not influenced by race at all, 
that the race question is not involved, that there is no relation- 
ship between the color of the men and the official action taken 
by the War Department and the Executive, it appears to me 
to be idle to deny it. Senators have deprecated the entry into 
this discussion of the race question in general. The Senator 
from Ohio [Mr. Foeaker] says he does not want to discuss that 
question. The Senator from Virginia [Mr. Daniel] is equally 
earnest in the desire that it shall not be injected here or else- 
where. But what is the use for us to ignore a plain and pal- 
pable fact? If the race question looms up here as prominently 
as the Washington Monument looms across the western horizon, 
what is the use for us to shun and to dread its discussion? 
While I was not in the Chamber, accidentally being out. it 
warmed the cockles of my heart to read in the Record the stor= 
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4 



of how this Chamber, by unanimous vote, put its opinion in the 
law that the great war of 1S61-1SG5 was not a war of rebellion, 
but a war between the States — a civil war. 

I claim the right to say that I know as much about north- 
era public opinion at this time on the race question as any 
man in this Chamber. In the last four months I have ad- 
dressed not less than 100,000 people in picked audiences 
throughout the North, mainly on this question. I find there, 
wherever I have gone, the same sentiment of lack of sectional- 
ism and of animosity to each other that was shown here yes- 
terday. The people of the North no longer hate the South, 
and the people of (be South have forgiven the North for the 
wrongs and injuries. [Laughter.] Oh, well. Senators laugh. 
I will illustrate it. I was speaking about the terrible sacri- 
fice that the race problem had cost this country — 500,000 lives, 
billions of treasure — no one knows how many — six or eight; the 
tears and blood that we offered up on the altar of patriotism in 
1S151-18G5 to settle the race question. Some man spoke up and 
said, " There was not any bloodshed north of Mason and Dixon's 
line." I said: "No; and if the people north of Mason and 
Dixon's line had stayed at home, there would not have been 
any bloodshed at all." I am not going into the merits of that 
proposition. I am not going to harass the souls of people here 
by saying that the people of the North had no right to go 
South. I ask you to agree that the southern soldiers fought 
for what they believed to be Light, and showed it by dying for 
it. That is all I ask. 

But that sacrifice to settle the race question, so far from 
having been effective, is acknowledged to have been absolutely 
wasted and worthless. We settled slavery and we settled the 
question of nationality. We destroyed one, and we settled for- 
ever the proposition as to whether we were a confederation or 
a nation. We are a nation with a big N. But the southern 
half of this country has no conception of the word " nation " 
except that it is connected with the word " nigger." Mo re's the 
pity ! 

When I want to be entirely respectful and conservative, I 
sometimes write a few words to read, and in all seriousness, 
with all the solemnity of which I am capable, I wish to ad- 
dress myself very briefly to the race problem in general. 

I do not understand the tactics of those who do not wish the 
race question discussed and I have no patience with such short- 
sighted and cowardly action. There is really nothing else in- 
volved except the race question, and the difficulties and dangers 
which environ it should make us the more anxious to begin to 
consider it calmly and dispassionately before other and more 
dire calamities come to us from it. Broadly stated, the white 
people of the United States are face to face with the vital issue 
as to whether the Caucasian race shall share its inheritance 
with the other races of the earth. In Cuba the question presses 
for solution and immediate action. Shall that island be gov- 
erned by negroes or white men? Shall it be doomed to the 
fate of Santo Domingo or shall it be saved for the white man? 
The question of a protectorate or annexation and of the future 
status of the people there must be determined in the near 
future. 

Now, I can elaborate this a little by pointing you to the fact 

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5 



that but for the existence in Cuba of tbe large negro popula- 
tion — which demands absolute equality in government, with tbe 
right to elect a majority of tbat Government, if it is able to 
do so, and bave tbat Government run by negroes — tbere would 
have been no insurrection. I do not hesitate to declare my be- 
lief tbat tbat insurrection was manufactured in New York and 
tbe arms furnished and tbe money to finance it. tbe negroes 
encouraged to rebel or to rise against Talma's Government and 
produce a condition wbicb made him plead to tbe United States, 
" Come and save us." So tbe Secretary of War was pent tbere, 
our ships were hurried to Habana, the Secretary giving place 
to Mr: Magoon, who is now tbere in control. 

I saw in tbe newspapers in tbe last week, in tbe Star and tb© 
New York Herald, statements which indicate that the sugar 
planters intend to blew up the railroads of tbe English company 
before they will allow the negroes to govern tbere, in order to 
compel tbe United States Government to assume a protectorate 
or annex the island, one or the other. When you search for the 
motive you are compelled to agree tbat tbe whole scheme is one 
to bring tbe sugar plantations owned by New York and English 
capitalists within the tariff wall of the United States Govern- 
ment, so that tbey can sell their sugar in our markets without 
paying the tariff duty. That is only one phase and a very small 
phase of the race question. 

On the Pacific coast the relationship between tbe Mongolians 
and the Caucasians is involved. Tbe President announces him- 
self as favoring the policy of absolute obliteration of tbe race 
line, tbe granting of full citizenship to tbe Japanese. Tbe 
Americans of the Pacific coast, as I understand it, are bitterly 
opposed to this policy, and without regard to party lines. 
These Americans ought to know what is for their best interest, 
and tbey ought to and undoubtedly will bave tbe sympathy and 
aid of their fellow-citizens North and South in protecting their 
interests. But these two phases of the race problem sink into 
insignificance alongside of the greater and more vital question 
of the relationship of tbe races in the Southern States of this 
Union. 

Now, here is a startling fact and on facts like this I plant 
my feet and ask any and everybody to argue from tbe fact. 

In six Southern States — South Carolina, Georgia. Florida, 
Alabama, Mississippi, and Louisiana — in tbe aggregate tbe 
negroes outnumber tbe whites and in two of them — South Caro- 
lina and Mississippi — tbe negro prep mderance is very heavy. 
Here are the figures from the census of 1900 : 



State. 


White. 


Negro. 




557, 995 
1.181,518 
1, 001 . 390 
297. 812 
643. 640 
730,821 


7S2, 321 
1,03-1.813 
827, 307 
230, 730 
907. CC0 
650, 804 






Florida 






Total 




-;. u;ue:> 







In two of those States — South Carolina and Mississippi— that 
compact group, with an area larger than France and capable of 
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6 



supporting a population as large as that of France, the negroes 
outnumber the whites. In our State there are 225,000 more ne- 
groes than whites, and in Mississippi two hundred and sixty- 
odd thousand more negroes than whites. 

Under the law — the fourteenth and fifteenth amendments — 
these people possess every right that white men have, as far as 
the Federal Constitution confers rights, and the fifteenth amend- 
ment expressly forbids the enactment of any law which shall 
discriminate in voting on account of race or color. Large num- 
bers of these negroes are disfranchised at this time, but these 
laws are only temporary and work no cure; they are only pal- 
liatives and offer us only a breathing spell, and in the near fu- 
ture enough negroes will be able to vote, under laws which we 
ourselves have passed, and we have exhausted nil expedients, 
to outvote us. Can anybody undertake to say that there will 
not then come a struggle for mastery between the two races. 

In Cuba the color line has been obliterated and miscegenation 
is in full blast. At the North the same conditions exist, and the 
large number of mulattoes and quadroons with white blood in 
their veins who have migrated there are the leaders or* the 
doctrine of absolute social equality, encouraged as they have 
been and are now by the President of the United States. Take 
this from his message on the Brownsville affair : 

Tt is of the utmost importance to all of our people that we shall 
deal with each man on his merit as a man, and not deal with him 
merely as a member of a "iron race ; that we shall judge each man by 
his conduct and not his color. 

And again : 

Every farsi^hted friend of the colored race in its efforts to strive 
onward and upward, should teach first, as the most important lesson, 
alike to the white man and the black, the duty of treating" the individual 
man strictly on his worth as he shows it. 

Consider the full import and meaning of these words and then 
consider whether or not they are sincere and honest or whether 
in the fervor of a fight to justify an unwarranted usurpation of 
power and exercise of executive authority the President forgot 
himself and said more than he intended or means. To illus- 
trate, is it possible or desirable that all consideration of race 
and color shall be dismissed from our minds and not govern our 
action ; that radical instincts implanted in us by nature are to 
be ignored and all men of all races to be judged and treated on 
the basis of " individual merit? " Are men to be made over and 
the caste feeling and race antagonisms of centuries to disappear 
in the universal brotherhood of man? Are there any Senators 
in this Chamber who subscribe to this doctrine who would have 
the Caucasian, highest and noblest of the five races as is at- 
tested by history, descend to the level of the others and share his 
birthright with them with the inevitable result that pure white 
blood will disappear from the face of the earth, and after the 
mixing of centuries shall have completed the amalgamation, 
have all men of one skin and one type? Is President Roosevelt 
ready to act up to his own theory and have his children marry 
men and women of the other races? Would he accept as a 
daughter-in-law a Chinese, a Malay, an Indian, or a negro in 
accord with the doctrine laid down in his message which I have 
quoted? We all know he would not, and while "fine words but- 
ter no parsnips" words like these are a source of incalcula- 
ble evil. 

7'iTO 



7 



I have pointed out to yon that his utterances in the official 
order No. 20 and in his letter to Admiral Rogers hnd induced 
the negroes to believe that they had a right to demand and to 
assert the right of absolute equality. 

The southern white men and women who hare for forty 
years resisted in every possible way this doctrine of the equality 
of the races are just as resolved now as they have always been 
not to submit to it or its results. They are resolved to maintain 
control of their State governments and to prevent in every way 
possible social and political equality, with the inevitable de- 
struction of their civilization which would follow if they yielded. 
The conditions are growing more and more aggravated every 
day. Race antagonism increases in intensity. Are things to 
drift until direful tragedies multiply on every band and blood 
shall how like water? Is the statesmanship of our time in- 
adequate to cope with this question, just as tbe statesmanship 
of 1800 failed to prevent the dire catastrophe of civil war? 
That war was fought to settle the race question, but forty years 
after its termination we find conditions more threatening in some 
of their aspects than they were in 1S61. 

It is not possible for me to believe that the theorists and sen- 
timentalists at the North, who are responsible for the conditions 
existing, will be allowed to pursue their policy of absolute rec- 
ognition of race equality much further. They settled tbe war 
entirely contrary to common sense. I may say — I mean the re- 
sult of the war. They went to war to destroy slavery and to 
restore the Union. If tbey had stopped there, we would have 
none of this trouble on our hands now. This question would have 
been allowed to evolute naturally, and we would have been 
permitted to give to those negroes who may have shown them- 
selves qualified and proper to hold the ballot the right to vote. 
But we have made this mistake of enfranchising a race, slaves 
last week, barbarians three generations ago. If it was a mis- 
take, why not say so? And why not retrace our steps? 

I do not believe that the northern people want to settle this 
question in any other way than will be best for the interests 
of the white people of the Pacific coast and of the Southern 
States, if they only knew how to go about it. I give the people 
of the North credit for being just as good and noble-hearted 
and generous in their wishes to do justice as I claim for our- 
selves. It is not a local question, nor is it a sectional ques- 
tion, except in so far as there are more negroes in tbe South 
than there are in the North. We are face to face with the ne- 
gro. Ycu have got a few thousand. My county has got more 
than all New England. 

I plead with Senators here not to ignore tbe gravity of the 
situation, not to allow things to go on as tbey are going on now, 
involving a struggle for mastery between the races in the South, 
coupled with the direful tragedies that will come, because the 
white people are resolved to maintain their civilization and pro- 
tect their women. It is a serious obligation of duty, and if I do 
nothing else in this debate than to have tbe subject presented 
broadly from the standpoint of patriotism and of statesmanship 
by somebody else. I will welcome tbe opportunity to give some 
more facts when the time comes. This Brownsville incident 
would never have attracted a thousandth part of the interest it 
has but for the fact that this great underlying question is in- 
volved in it. 
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8 

Mr. BEYER IDGE. Mr. President 

The VICE-PRESIDENT. Does the Senator from South Caro- 
lina yield to the Senator from Indiana? 

Mr. TILLMAN. I was about through, but I will yield to the 

Senator for a question. 

Mr. BEVERIDGE. I was merely going to ask a question 
which is pertinent, I think. The Senator has spoken with a 
great deal of vigor on the race question. Could the Senator 
suggest to the Senate what the solution of the race question is? 
What is he going to do about it? 

Mr. TILLMAN. Well, that would involve Another couple of 
hours, ami I have already trespassed long enough on the atten- 
tion of the Senate to-day. I hope the Senator from Indiana, 
who is himself a brilliant statesman, will be able to give us some 
suggestion as to what we ought to do about it. I merely point 
out a great and a tragic situation. 

Mr. BEVERIDGE. Mr. President 

The VICE-PRESIDENT. Does the Senator from South Caro- 
lina yield further to the Senator from Indiana? 
Mr. TILLMAN. With pleasure. 

Mr. BEVERIDGE. The Senator has taken two hours in stat- 
ing the existence of a condition to which he says he has given 
very great study, and I know that is true, and he has referred 
to the question of statesmanship. I am satisfied that I voice the 
opinion of my colleagues here when I say that the Senate would 
be delighted to give him two hours more if he will now state the 
remedy which in all his study lias suggested itself to him. 

Mr. TILLMAN. I will do that later in the debate, perhaps. 
Just at this time, fatigued as I am and having just gotten up 
out of a sick bed, I shall not undertake to go into any further 
discussion of this question. I merely have tried, in my feeble 
and humble way, to point out that we in the South are on the 
crest of a volcano. We are environed with dangers of which 
the people of the North have no conception, and we realize the 
fearful tragedies that are near in front of us unless something 
can be done to ameliorate conditions. That is all. We are not 
responsible for the situation. We can not change the condition. 
The discussion, or rather the action, must come from those who 
precipitated this condition, who are responsible for it now, and 
who will be responsible for its continuous existence. I am 
ready to contribute in my humble way, both with facts and ar- 
guments, when the time comes. 

It is high time something was being done to have this great 
and vital question brought before the country in some practical 
and sensible way. The deep interest shown in the Brownsville 
tragedy is ample evidence that the people of the country are 
beginning to feel a deep concern in the various phases of this 
question, and it is absolutely useless for doctrinaires and poli- 
ticians to undertake to pooh pooh the question and dismiss it 
with a wave of the hand, and for one I am ready to go to battle 
under the slogan, "America for the Americans, and this is a 
white man's country and white men must govern it." 
7070 

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